The initiatives below are just some of the numerous examples of our weather, climate, water and ocean research work.
Pacific Climate Change Science Program (PCCSP)
The Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO worked with 15 developing Pacific Island countries to greatly enhance their ability to manage climate change. This covered understanding of past, present and future climate variability and change, and strengthening the capacity of their National Meteorological Services.
Small island developing countries are among the most vulnerable to climate change. During this century, these countries will face increasing threats to sustainable development from the impacts of climate change. Sectors which are likely to be most affected include human health, infrastructure, coastal resources, disaster management, fresh water availability, agriculture, fisheries, forestry, marine ecosystems and tourism.
Australian Climate Change Research Programme (ACCSP)
Bureau of Meteorology expertise in climate change has been built on more than 25 years of leading edge research under the Australian Climate Change Research Programme (ACCSP). This program, carried out in collaboration with CSIRO and the Department of the Environment, has been Australia's largest and longest running climate change research program. Bureau's research included extensive development and application of climate models, and research into the causes, timings and consequences of climate change in Australia and the Southern Hemisphere. Particular emphases have been on the impacts of climate change on extremes, such as east coast lows, tropical cyclones, and bushfires, and on large scale features driving Australia's weather and climate, such as ENSO and the Australian monsoon. This work underpinned, and contributed to, the production of the most recent set of detailed Australian climate change projections.
Severe Weather Science – Fire Weather
The Bureau of Meteorology has a strong research focus on all forms of severe weather affecting Australia, including tropical cyclones, fire weather, severe thunderstorms, east coast lows and heat waves. Bushfires are amongst Australia's most dangerous natural disasters, and our research includes understanding the weather on severe days, the reasons for fire blow-ups, and the interaction between the fire and the atmosphere. Our thunderstorm research encompasses the use of radar in short-term monitoring and prediction, as well as the development and operationalisation of techniques to predict severe thunderstorm potential. The most damaging severe weather events are fortunately rare, but this imposes a requirement that we learn as much as possible from each event to better mitigate them in the future. Therefore we have a strong focus on case studies of severe weather of all types, and have contributed to the 'lessons learned' process for a diverse range of events.
Bluelink
The Australian Defence Force requires information on the physical environment in which they operate to effectively and safely meet their objectives. Over the last decade the Bureau, in partnership with the CSIRO and the Royal Australian Navy through the Bluelink project, has developed an operational ocean forecasting system—OceanMAPS, that predicts the three-dimensional temperature and salinity structure and currents. The system utilises routine real-time observations from satellites and profiling floats, and atmospheric forecasts to predict ocean conditions out to seven days ahead. The system generates a small ensemble of possible future ocean states—allowing for a probabilistic view of the future. The system has undergone a series of upgrades, and the next one will occur in 2016 with enhanced global horizontal resolution capability to around 10 km.
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